


Where's Specter One?

by BatmanWhoLaughss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hera Syndulla Needs A Hug, Hurt No Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, Past Character Death, Post-Finale, Post-Star Wars: Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26466928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatmanWhoLaughss/pseuds/BatmanWhoLaughss
Summary: "“You’re Specter Two, huh, General? Where’s Specter One?”Hera stops breathing.We’re gonna need codenames. Something… spooky, like the Ghost.---A rebel ensign, an innocent question, and a broken heart. Or: the loss finally sinks in.
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla, The Ghost Crew & Hera Syndulla
Comments: 21
Kudos: 87





	Where's Specter One?

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Kanan, and Hera does too- so I wrote about it. Prepare to cry.

“General!”

Hera turns and sees one of the ensigns running towards them. _Please, just for one kriffing minute, can I get a break? “_ General Syndulla, Mon Mothma wants to see you. She says it’s urgent.” 

She sighs. She’s bone tired, the kind where her limbs ache and it feels like there’s a physical weight on her shoulders, but the Rebellion waits for no one. Normally after just getting back from a mission, she’d be hypercharged, the adrenaline of outflying TIEs keeping her keyed up.

But it’s different now. It’s been two weeks since Lothal, and she’s still hollow. Flying doesn’t feel the same, now that the copilot’s seat is empty. 

“I’ll be right there.” She turns to Zeb. “Specter Four, can you unload the rest of the cargo?” 

“Copy that, Specter Two.” Zeb walks back towards the stack of crates next to the _Ghost_ , grabbing one and dragging it towards the warehouses. 

“Specter Five, you mind giving him a hand?” Hera asks Sabine.

She shakes her head. “Have to give something to Wedge first, so I’ll walk with you.” 

The ensign is still standing there, glancing between them. He clears his throat. “So,” he says, trying to make conversation. He looks out of place, like he’d rather be anywhere but here, and conversation seems to be the only way he can make things less weird. “You’re Specter Two, huh, General? Where’s Specter One?”

Hera stops breathing. Her whole body freezes, going rigid all over, and then suddenly she’s _shaking_ , struggling to stay upright on trembling legs. 

_We’re gonna need codenames. Something… spooky, like the Ghost. Ooh! I’ve got it. Specters, right?_ He looked so excited, his eyes sparkling. _Specters are spooky, and kind of cool. I’ll be Specter One and you’ll be Specter Two. That way no one knows you’re really the ace around here._

She can feel someone shaking her shoulder, see a vague streak of purple in her field of view, but her vision’s gone blurry and everything she hears is white noise and _she can’t kriffing_ _breathe_. 

_Specters… I’m proud of myself for that one–that’s pretty good. Do you like it?_ He looked so kriffing _happy_ , so pleased with himself, that she couldn’t help but kiss him stupid.

_You do have your moments, love._

“ _Hera!”_

She’s still not breathing, and there’s an ache in her chest that’s spreading through her whole body. The white noise is dying down to a dull murmur of voices, but her vision is still hazy and she’s frozen to the spot as she feels herself shattering like glass. 

_Where’s Specter One?_

_Fire. Fire was_ everywhere _. Everything was too hot and too bright and she was exhausted and aching and still hazy from the drugs, but she saw_ him _, standing tall against the bright light and meeting her eyes. She saw a brilliant teal blue that pierced her soul for one fleeting moment, and then her body was thrown backwards and everything’s been grey since._

_I love you._

“Hera, _hey,_ listen to me, I know, _I know,_ but _you need to breathe_.”

It’s Sabine, and her eyes are frantic as Hera dimly registers her words. But it’s _wrong,_ it’s the wrong face _,_ it’s brown instead of blue, it’s purple instead of brown, it’s a high pitched, panicked yell instead of a calm, deep voice. She knows her face is wet, and she should be embarrassed because they’re in the middle of the base and the ensign is still standing there. But suddenly nothing matters except the wide, gaping _chasm_ inside of her that nothing will ever fill. 

_Must be the truth serum talking._

She somehow manages one breath. Then two, even though it feels like dragging her body through a sandstorm. She’s trembling harder now and her vision’s still blurry, but somehow she’s still upright. Sabine is _yelling_ , telling the ensign she’s going to make sure he’s stuck scrubbing the base’s fresher’s for a year and he’ll never see a battle, but there’s a tremor in her voice too. 

Chopper’s also shouting, letting out loud angry warbling that loosely translates to _you fucking moron, you idiot, get away from her and don’t come back,_ and trying to whack the man with his arms. He’s got his shock poker out too, chasing the man until he’s literally running away. Hera knows she should stop them both, because it’s not the ensign’s fault–he couldn’t have known. But she can’t seem to make her mouth move, can’t seem to find her voice. She’s just standing there, silently crying as reality itself seems to start slipping away. 

_That droid is a damn menace._

_He just doesn’t trust you yet._

_How long is it going to take for him to stop trying to hurt me?_

It’s hitting her like a freight train, everything she pushed down until they finished the mission bubbling back up to the surface. Her knees are shaking and she’s swaying and everything is suddenly too _much_ . It’s bright and loud and empty all at the same time. And suddenly she’s moving, almost sprinting back to the _Ghost_ as she lets out a strangled cry that she can’t keep down. She stumbles a couple times, clumsy and desperate to get home. 

Except it’s not home. Not anymore. Her home died on Lothal. 

Somehow, Hera makes it back onto the ship, even though she’s barely standing and she can’t see straight. She doesn’t realize she’s heading for Kanan’s bunk until she gets there, staggering inside before locking the door behind her for good measure.

His cabin is pristine. It’s bare, the holocron on the shelf and the mask that Chopper had left on his bed the only markers of his presence. It rips her open even more, because he’s always travelled light but now he’s _gone_ , and her heart’s gone along with him. 

And _that’s_ when her knees give out and she slides bonelessly to the floor, burying her face in her hands. She somehow manages to crawl forward, dragging her aching body onto his bed as her chest heaves with the force of her sobs. She curls up there, making herself as small as possible in the tiny space and cradling his mask against her stomach. 

She doesn’t know how long she lies there, sobbing and sniffling and whispering his name over and over again into the empty air. It’s like blood pouring from a wound, the way all their memories are flashing through her head only to be surrounded by fire just like he was. 

_Morning, love._

_Mmmm. Few more minutes, sunshine._

_You always say that._ His answering smile had been so bright it was blinding. 

Then suddenly she’s _screaming_ , yelling into the barren ship in between her sobs. Because it’s not fair _,_ none of it is; she spent her whole life in this fight and now the one hope she had for the future, the one thing she could always count on, was gone. She’s cursing Thrawn and Pryce and the Empire and _herself_ for being a _fucking_ coward _,_ for not telling him what he meant to her until it was too late and letting him think he wasn’t important. 

She’s still screaming, curled up in his empty bed and hearing him laugh inside her head. She yells until her voice is hoarse, until she chokes on a broken wail and dissolves into low whimpers as her body trembles all over. She’s still _crying_ , she can’t stop crying, because nothing _matters_ anymore, not without him. The entire galaxy could explode right at this moment, and she wouldn’t care. 

Her face is buried in his pillow, and her sobs are still so loud that she doesn’t hear the low _whoosh_ of the door opening. Her vision is still blurry, but she vaguely registers a strong grip on her shoulders before someone grabs her hands. She feels a faint tug, like someone’s trying to pull her arms away from her chest where she’s guarding his mask like a priceless artifact. And that sets off another wave of tears, because _no, no,_ no, _it’s the only piece I have left, they can’t, they_ can’t…

The voices are getting slightly clearer as she clutches Kanan’s mask tighter, and the pair of hands changes tactics. It moves to Hera’s back, where one of them rests between her shoulder blades. They’ve stopped trying to pull her upright, instead simply rubbing her back in circular motions as she cries. She thinks she might hear Sabine’s voice, might hear it break and might hear her breaths hitching too. She’s trying to focus on the hand on her back, but it’s still _wrong._ It’s not the one spot and pattern that he knows always soothes her. It’s not the rough timbre of his voice as he whispers exactly what she needs to hear into her ear, and it never will be again. 

It’s a while before her tears dry enough for her vision to clear. By then she’s spent, exhausted and trembling but still sobbing silently, even though her tears are almost gone. She can see Sabine, and her eyes are red and puffy as tears stain her face too. Then she glances around, and she sees Zeb there too, and Chopper. Sabine and Zeb are crying with her, weeping as they kneel on the floor near where she’s wrapped up in his sheets. Even Chopper looks sad, and she dimly registers one of his pincers grabbing onto her hand. 

And it’s as she’s watching them cry that she realizes that _they’ve_ been pushing all this down the same as her. They _all_ lost a part of their family, and she’s been blind to it all because of her own grief. 

_You spend so much time worrying about everyone else. Do you ever leave some time for yourself?_ He asked her that soon after they found Chopper Base. 

Then she thinks about Ezra, about his sly smile and lanky frame and bright spirit that helped bring Kanan back to who he really was, and another fresh wave of tears starts again. She’s surprised she can even cry anymore. It’s a different hurt, not as deep as the wound from losing Kanan, but one that cuts to the core all the same. And a part of her feels guilty for forgetting about Ezra until now, and she’s shaking harder as she curls inward again. 

The four of them sit there for what feels like hours, huddled together in Kanan’s bunk and pouring their broken hearts out together. No one says anything, or tries to offer empty words, because there’s nothing to say. There’s nothing that will make this okay, nothing to make the pain stop. There’s only the crack inside all of them that would never mend, not fully.

Eventually, her body can’t take anymore, and her sobs die down into quiet gasps. She wants to say something; she knows she _should_ say something. She’s their Captain, the General who’s supposed to have all the answers, but she can’t bring herself to do it. She can’t manage to will the shattered pieces of her heart back together again for long enough to offer some word of encouragement, and instead just curls in on herself a little tighter. 

Her brain is still repeating Kanan’s name on a loop, and suddenly she’s angry again. She’s miserable and lost and she _hates_ herself for all the things she should have said. “I loved him.” It comes out as a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t _tell him_ , not ‘til it was too late.” Her eyes are watering with tears she didn’t know her body still had. “It’s my fault _,_ he didn’t want this life and I dragged him into it. It’s _all my fault.”_ She trails off, repeating the phrase like a mantra. Because _it is,_ Kanan never wanted this, if she had just listened to him, he would still be here. 

Sabine’s mumbling something. It sounds like _Hera no, stop, please,_ but she’s too far gone for the words to sink in. It’s like everything that mattered died with him and she’s an empty shell, and right now she just wants the pain to end. 

Hera isn’t sure how much time passes as they all lie there. It might be hours, but none of them leave. They’re trapped in their own little bubble of grief, mourning everything they’ve lost. And part of her thinks that it’s nice to have them all here, but the other part of her can’t bring herself to really care. 

Eventually, she drifts off to sleep. They all do, curled up right there on the floor and the bed as their eyes droop. Hera’s bone-tired, exhaustion seeping through every pore. Her broken heart is still aching as her eyes slide shut, but the last thing she hears is his voice. It’s the same voice she’s heard for days.

_May the Force be with you._

_Don’t go all ‘Jedi Master’ on me._

A laugh. _It just means be safe, love. Come back to me in one piece._

Ironic, in the end. He's the one who isn’t coming back. 


End file.
